Thank the Lord for his mercy, bringing us here today. We'll be looking in Revelation, Chapter 2. As Brother Al shared with us, in his study, I thought to myself how much in keeping those things that we saw there with Jeroboam and Rehoboam and the Lord's judgment upon it, how much in keeping it is with this warning that he gives to the church at Thyatira. And unto the angel, this is verse 18 in chapter 2, and unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass. I know thy works, and charity, or love, and service, and faith, and thy patience, or thy endurance, and thy works, and the last to be more than the first.

Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servant. to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent. of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts.

And I will give unto every one of you according to your words. But unto you, I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none of the burden. But that which ye have already, hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.

And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my father. And I will give him the morning star. And he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Now those are some sobering words that he brings here. to this church at Thyatira.

And as we have said, as we began looking at these churches, they're not specifically and solely having to do with each individual church, but they are pictures of the people of God and how that the Lord deals with his children in the course of life. And we can see ourselves in every one of these churches.

These are not anomalies. They're not set up in something that's far different. But they are, he uses these churches and no doubt there was a specific written to in each one of these cases here, specifically addressed, but we don't need to think that he's just, we can sit back over here and say, yeah, look at them, they really need to straighten up. No, we're not like them.

We need the exhortations. that are in this, and admonitions, the warnings. Because it's by the exhortations and the admonitions of the scripture that the Lord delivers his people out of ungodliness in this world, because we're surrounded with ungodliness. The Lord said you're in the world, but he said you're not of the world.

And so his children or those whom he would bring out of this. That's the whole reason he writes to the churches. That's the reason he gives these warnings. He's not giving them the warnings because he's planning to destroy some of them that belong to him, but he's giving them these warnings so that they might flee from these things that does cause men to be destroyed. just like Sodom, like Brother Al brought out about Sodom.

I mean, on the one hand, the sin of Sodom is no greater than any other sin that men commit. on one hand, but yet it's a sin that is spelled out and singled out in the scriptures because of the fact that it is an affront before God, and it's like spitting in the face of God. It is the very height of idolatry, where men may worship and serve gods like unto themselves. They say, well, you know, it's okay with us, so it's gotta be all right.

And we are surrounded with this, and I think that's what he's getting at here when he speaks about the woman Jezebel. Perhaps there was a woman in that area that was actually a prophetess among people going about from here to there. I don't know if he's speaking specifically about a particular woman prophetess in literal terms, like we would say, Brother Ed's over here doing this. I don't know that. But I do know this, that we can learn from what he has said about this one.

And so he says here, these things saith the Son of God, who hath eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass. That's what he said over here in 114. He said his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. a glorious view of Jesus Christ.

We never need to move past that. You know, that's the place we need to be every day when we think about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I know it's a popular view To always, oh, we're thinking of Christ, he's walking among the people of the earth, and he's blessing the children, and he's healing the sick, and he's doing all these things, and surely he did.

Never man spake like this man. Never was kindness demonstrated in the earth in greater fashion than that which the Lord Jesus Christ came to do. But don't ever forget that the one who came and walked upon this earth demonstrating that kindness and that love is this same one who speaks now to the churches. And John saw him and he fell at his feet as a dead man because of the glory that surrounded him.

And see, that's why we go into the world preaching the gospel. The gospel is not about trying to get folks to do something. It's not about trying to get folks saved. The preaching of the gospel is to magnify the one who died for sinners, but the glory of the one of his dying for sinners is in who it was that died for sinners.

The great God of glory, the one who made all things and by whom all things consist. And so that must ever be in our mind. When we think of him who died, we must think of the one that was who died. He wasn't just another man. He was the living God. Clothed in majesty. And he laid that aside and he condescended to men of low estate. And that should overwhelm our mind daily to think that God would have even a consideration of us. See, a lot of people think, well, you know, we're worthy for the Lord to consider us. No, we're not any more worthy than the ants crawling on ant hill.

I know, you know, people say, oh, well, men, they're different. They've got, they're like, they have a God-shaped blank in them. You know, they're kind of got this little piece of God in them. No. We're creatures of the earth. We're creatures of the dust.

But God, who's rich in mercy, has stooped down and he has saved us out of this present evil world. What a glorious God he is. Nothing caused him to do it but himself. See, God is the first cause of all things. Nothing causes God to do anything. People say, you gonna cause God to do this? No, you're not gonna cause God to do anything. God's gonna cause you.

And he is the one who is worthy to be praised. He is that one whose eyes are like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass. I know thy works. and charity and service and faith and thy patience. Now, of course, we don't use the word charity like it's used here. I mean, we think of charity as going about and doing things for other people or giving money. And that is charity, and it is charity that if it's motivated for the right reason, it comes out of what charity that's speaking in this verse is speaking about, but it's talking about love, that true love, that love which is without motivation.

It doesn't have anything behind it except the purity of that which it is. See and only the Lord, the scripture says God is love. We learn love from him and he gives us love. But he is love and he teaches us what that is. Not motivated by anything but what it is. What he is.

I know thy works. I see those things. that you're about doing, everything. And so what of our works? Your works as you daily walk, what you're about doing, your thinking, your activities. The Lord knows your works. He knows what's going on with you. He knows what's in your mind. He knows what occupies your thoughts. He sees everything that's about you. I know thy works." Now he's saying he's commending them. He says, I know thy works. He says, I'm commending you here. I know your works. I know your love. I know your service. I know you go about doing good things.

Now we must never go about doing good things because we hope to gain something by it. The Lord said when you give something, he said don't let your right hand know what your left hand's doing. Don't do things to be seen of men. No, you can get men to do things so that if you give a, you tell a man, we'll put your name on a plaque and put it up here on the wall and he might be motivated to do it. God's people aren't to be motivated by such things as that.

I'm amazed a lot of times when I go in church houses and they got plaques here up in there of people's names. Why would you want your name on something? that you give to the Lord. Why would you ever give any consideration to that? I mean, if you give it to the Lord, you give it not expecting anything of it, but because you desire to.

And that's what he says here. I've seen your service and your faith. Now, what is our faith? Is it something we gain? No, it's what the Lord gave us. He says, I've seen your faith. Why? Because he gave it to us. And what is our faith? Our faith is Christ. This is our faith. The body and the blood of Jesus Christ, that's our faith. His righteousness, His sanctification, His justification, that's our faith. That's that thing upon which our hope is built.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And you know there's a danger in men to go about and say, my hope is built on nothing less. But brethren, our hope needs to be built on nothing more than that either. See, a lot of people say, oh yeah, we believe in Jesus, but we're gonna, you know, the Lord's gonna see our good works and he's gonna pat us on the back. And we're gonna move up a little higher.

Remember when the disciples said, Lord, what are we going to get? And that was when the Lord gave them the parable of the workers in the vineyard and those that came in the first hour of the day. Got the same pay that those that came at the last. And they thought, well, we should have got more when it came time. No, the Lord gives his people. If you get this, the Lord gives you something, you can't, would you complain because of what the Lord gave you? To him that's given much, much is required. Oh, the Lord might teach us such things as that.

Your faith and your patience, that's endurance. We talked about that before when he speaks to one of the churches there about patience, that is not simply forbearing with one another, though we are to do that. Sometimes that's hard to do, but it has to do with endurance, being patient, waiting upon the Lord, not trying to run ahead, but waiting. But you know, I believe that probably waiting on the Lord's harder than moving forward, isn't it? Waiting for the Lord to tell us what to do. But oh, you know, waiting on the Lord is a much better thing than running ahead. Uzzah ran ahead and the Lord smote him. The prophet that we looked at a few weeks ago, He ran ahead, didn't he?

He figured, well, the Lord is, he told me not to eat anything and to go on back home, but you know I'm tired. I mean, surely he wouldn't begrudge me to stop here at this prophet's house. I mean, here's a prophet. Surely we can have some fellowship and we can sit around and everything will be fine. But see, the Lord told him, don't do that. But he didn't wait on the Lord. Oh, we might have that patience. But he's commending them. He's not upbraiding them. He's saying, I know your patience and your works. That is, those things that they have performed for the cause of Christ.

And he says, and the last be more than the first. I believe what that means is he's saying that You've improved, if you want to use that word. In other words, you're actually increasing in these good works. You're not declining in them. He's saying the last is more than what you started off with. He says you're doing, I commend you for these things. I'm not against you in this respect.

But he does, then he says, nevertheless. Notwithstanding, he says, I have a few things against thee. Remember, we talked about that last week, because he said the same thing to the other church in Pergamos. He said, I've got some things against you. That doesn't mean he's mad at them. It doesn't mean he's fixing to drop the hammer on them. But it just means he's simply telling them, look, you're not walking in the right, you don't have the right mindset about these things. And then he goes on to tell them what it is that he has against them. He said, because thou sufferest or thou permittest, you let this go on.

You let this woman, that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols. Idolatry is the main sin that you read about in the scripture. That was what brought down Rehoboam, Jeroboam, Ahab, all of these, King Solomon. What brought him down was idolatry. What is idolatry?

The Lord said, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now what he meant by that was, don't put me up here at number one, and then you got number two, three, and four, and you can have these other gods, but just put them two, three, four, and five. No, he didn't mean that. When he said, thou shalt have no other gods before me, he meant you shall have no other gods before my face. There are no other gods. All of these false gods are not worthy to be worshiped. They're not worthy to be mentioned in the same breath.

I remember years ago I was reading a book, and I don't even know what the book was, but it was a book that a guy had written about all the different gods of the earth. And he goes through all these different gods, I mean, just hundreds of them, thousands of them maybe. And he's defining each one, telling what they were, who worshiped them, and all these things. But when he gets to Jehovah, he said, this is a god who is not like any other. He said, he is so great. that these other gods are not even worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as him.

Now, I don't know what this guy's belief were or what motivated him to write this book or anything else, but I thought to myself, you know, wow, This guy, he at least had some understanding of who this one is. He said, this is not, the Lord, our God, he's not like unto others.

You know, some say they look at the Muslims, for instance. They say, oh, you know, these people, aside from all the blood and mayhem that some of them cause, most of them, you know, are just peace-loving people and whatever. And they may be. But dear brethren, they worship a false god.

Allah is not God. Mohammed is not God's prophet. The Lord's his own prophet. And he's spoken unto us by his son. And there's no other one to be listened to. The Hindus and all these things, brethren, these are pagan, idolatrous worship. We can give them no thought.

I mean, it's all right to study that stuff if you want to, but don't ever think of it in like some kind of parallel consideration that these things, some crazy guy that's running for office, what's it, down there in Texas, Tallarico. He said that, he basically was saying that all of these gods, you know, that Allah and the gods of the Hindus and all these people, really all the same thing. Not all the same thing. Jesus Christ, you see Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes to the Father but by me. Now you can't say, as the Muslims claim, that Jesus was a great prophet. because ultimately they believe that Jesus was a liar. Do they not? He said you can't come unto God any other way. He said I and my Father are one. Anybody that says that's not true is going against what Christ said. I won't believe anybody above what Christ said. You see, he's giving us the truth. We don't pat ourselves on the back because we discovered it. Brethren, we'd be as ignorant as the next man if God hadn't shown us the truth.

But he came to his disciples and he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He testified of it in the garden when they came to take him. And they said, we seek Jesus of Nazareth. You know what he said? He said the same thing to them that he said to Moses. He says, I am.

And they fell backwards. And another thing, I'm overwhelmed every time I read that. And I'm seeing in my mind these soldiers. our temple guards coming up there to arrest the Lord Jesus Christ, and he says that, and they all fall back just like the wind blew them down. Just like old Benny Hinn, you know, he does his arm, but he actually, the Lord actually had the power to do it. He didn't rely on some theatrical, they were blown backwards. And I'm amazed in my mind, but it's an illustration of the hardness of men's hearts, and it's an illustration of the predestinating work of God, that these men could be blown back like that and get up and still go about doing what they came there to do. You think, well, and people say, oh, well, if I'd have been there, I'd have done this. No, you'd have done just exactly what they did if you'd have been among them.

Because God is the one that appoints men to perform the tasks that he would have them doing. He said, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and crucified the Son of God. Why was Jesus Christ crucified? Because God ordained it to be so. Now he used the hands of wicked men to perform it. But you can count on this, they were accountable for what they did. Now that doesn't mean that the Lord might have shown mercy to some of them. We can never know what the Lord did.

I mean, just like when I was writing this week about Malchus, And the Lord, you know, calls Peter's sword to slice off his ear rather than cutting off his head. And I thought to myself, you know, when Malchus, when he left that place, now he went ahead and as far as we know, he went on and did exactly what he came there to do. But I can't help but think that probably later on Malchus thinking, you know.

Every time he reached up there and he touched that ear, that was chopped off and the Lord just put his hand on it. I don't know if he picked the ear up off the ground or if it was hanging by a meat and he put it back on there or if he just made him another ear. See, he could have done anything that he wanted to. He comes sometimes when he heals the blind He just said, you can see. And others, he told them to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He put mud on their eye. One guy put mud on his eye and told him to go wash it off and he could see.

The Lord can do anything he wants to do. However, he determines to do it. And he can change the heart of a man in a moment if it pleases him to do so. or he can leave him in his sin. See, the Lord Jesus Christ came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. And so it is, he's the one that does these things. How do we get off on all that?

I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophet to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols. We live in the days of Jezebel. Now Jezebel, as you recall, or you may not, you ought to know who she is. She was the wife of Ahab. Ahab was the son of Omri. He was a king in Israel.

And Omri, the scripture says, did more wicked than anybody that ever came before him. He was more wicked than Solomon. He was more wicked than Jeroboam. He was more wicked than Rehoboam. He was the wickedest. But you know what it says about Ahab? It says Ahab exceeded them all. He was worse than they were. And who did Ahab pick for a wife? A nice little woman named Jezebel. And they were a good couple. I mean, they deserved each other. And Jezebel was a painted up woman.

Now, you know, The scripture never condemns such things as women wearing makeup and fixing themselves up and stuff like that. And I wouldn't be the one to come say there's anything in the world wrong with that. That's fine. But the scripture does tell us that that's not supposed to be the main thing that a woman is concerned with. He said don't be Don't let the very innermost part of you be desirous of presenting yourself beautiful before the world, but let it be desiring the hidden man of the heart.

You're not these external things. And the only reason I bring that up is because he mentions Jezebel and it's a picture. Men are just as guilty. of this, the very thing. And the only reason that I bring this up is because Jezebel is representative of this idolatrous world which is around us and would suck us in.

Not necessarily openly. Remember when Ahab was going to, he wanted this vineyard that belonged to Naboth. And Naboth said, you know, I don't really want to sell it. Or was it Naboth? I don't remember, I can't recall. Neighbor, there's two guys in the scripture. One of them was, came kind of against David, and the other one was this way.

Anyway, he had this vineyard. And he was just laying around, wondering what he could do. You know, oh, I wish I could get this vineyard. And his lovely wife, Yesabel, said, well, heck, you can get the vineyard. Just go kill old Naboth and you'll have it. And he thought, wow, you know, that's a pretty good idea. And that's what he did. She whispered in his ear.

Now ultimately, old King Jehu did her in. Elijah prophesied, he said the dogs were gonna eat Jezebel. And sure enough, when Jehu came to the city where she was, and he surrounded it, and he said, throw out Jezebel, and they threw her over the wall. And she fell down on the ground and burst open, and the dogs came up and ate her, just like the prophet said. And that's what the Lord's saying here. He says he will, he hates He said, what are you doing letting her walk among you? And even not only just walk among you, but be a prophetess in your midst, be telling you what to do. How does the world tell us what to do? How does the world tell us what's proper? Because we listen to it. Just like Brother Al ably pointed out, you can't escape the world.

This idea, as he goes on to say, that she teaches his servants to seduce, or to be seduced, to commit fornication, eat things, sacrifice to idols. Uncleanness. Brother, we need to flee from it. Because it'll capture us. I mean, you can be looking at something that you might think is just as fine as it can be, and in a moment, it'll be turned into something that is wicked, that you ought not to be looking at. Need to be careful. Now we know that. We don't need to toy with it. Ahab should have got rid of Jezebel to start with. He'd have been better off, but he couldn't because that was what he loved Jezebel. He wanted to stay with her.

God's people must not love the world. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We don't get our marching orders from the world. If the world says it's all right to do these things, to act a certain way, and the Lord says don't do those things, then we must cast it away from us. But what happens by nature? See, men by nature will gravitate to the lowest ebb. That's the nature we have. I mean, if God doesn't restrain us, we'll go into all sorts of stuff.

Now, what the false prophets do, say, well, let's see, that's fine. Just be what you are. Talk about sodomy. Again, I'm not singling this out as being the only sin that men can commit, and if you avoid that, you've done something, no. You're still an unprofitable servant, just because you're not that. But you cannot go into the world and say, this is okay. You can't think like that. Well, it's really not all that bad. It is bad. Why is it bad? Because God said it was.

We can't embrace it. Now I'm not, we're not going out here trying to fight these people or call down fire from heaven on them or bring the law down on them or something like that. But we need to tell them. We need to stand for what we believe in and not pussyfoot around with it.

You know, and all of this stuff. I mean, even our government's supposed to be these guys that's conservatives, what they call conservatives. And yet, they just embrace that stuff. I mean, some of the cabinet members is all into that. Now, why am I? Bringing that up, I don't even know why, but I know that this is the kind of stuff that Jezebel is identified with. Sexual uncleanness, fornication. Those things that God says he will kill people for. I gave her space to repent, and she repented not. Why'd she not repent? Because it wasn't in her nature to do so.

You want to be hanging around somebody like that? You know, a bold-faced person who spits in the face of God and says, I don't care if God says it's wrong, I'm gonna do it. And that's exactly what these people do. You wanna embrace that? You wanna go down the road and say, well, it's okay? No. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulations, except they repent, and I will kill her children, with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts, and I'll give unto every one of you according to your words."

The Lord knows them that are His. He warns us. Why does He warn us? Because He loves us. See, He won't lose one of His children, but He will often admonish us strongly. and cause us to look in the mirror and see ourselves and say, oh God. David did, did he not? David was a wicked man, and yet the Lord brought him. And he said, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit in me. Cast me not away from thy presence, oh Lord.

Not a people that embrace the world. We're in the world, but we're not of the world. We don't love the world. We see it for what it is. We hold it at an arm's length. May the Lord give us grace to do so, that we might be a people who have no other gods before his face. We don't have anything that we hold on to. And we say, well, we can't do without that.

Is there something in your life that you can't do without? Then you need to get rid of it. Because it will, just like Jezebel brought Ahab down to destruction. It will bring you down, and that's who Jezebel is. Whatever form she takes, she's at work today. May the Lord help us.